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A good trailer entices, a bad one gives it all away. We dive into 20 prime examples of movie trailers that pointlessly spoiled their own major plot points, twists, and surprise endings.
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00:00While it might not be as true today, given the myriad ways films are marketed across social media,
00:07historically, the most important part of the movie marketing process has always been the
00:13trailer, because it grants studios the grandest opportunity to convey to audiences what a film's
00:19plot, style and tone are all about. And yet, it's a common criticism of modern movie trailers that
00:26they just give away way too damn much. But hey, if you thought modern trailers were bad, hoo boy,
00:33the oldies were just as if not more guilty. So let's take a look at some of the worst, shall
00:39we?
00:39I'm Ewan, you're watching WhatCulture, and with obvious spoilers ahead, here are movie trailers
00:45that pointlessly spoiled huge details. Everyone gets off the bus. Speed.
00:52Speed. The trailer for Speed, aka the bus that couldn't slow down, does a generally fantastic
00:59job of hyping the action classic up as the sweaty-palmed, high-octane thrill ride that it ultimately
01:05is, but also gets a little overzealous and basically spoils the movie's very conceit.
01:12In the hallowed tradition of 90s movie trailers that give away the A-Z plot for free, Speed's
01:19almost three-minute-long reel flagrantly shows the ill-fated bus exploding while crashing into a
01:26plane, and the actual passengers watching the explosion from a safe distance, making it clear
01:32that they all get off the bus and survive. Beyond that, the trailer also spoils that there's an
01:38additional action sequence after the bus scenario is resolved, where heroes Jack, Keanu Reeves, and Annie,
01:45Sandra Bullock, battle villain Howard Payne, played deliriously well by Dennis Hopper,
01:51on board a runaway train, while also spoiling that said train crashes onto the street.
01:57Yeah, it's just as well that Speed is such an impossibly awesome movie that audiences wanted
02:03to watch it anyway, but the marketing team? Yeah, they really didn't need to blow their whole wad here.
02:09006 is the villain, GoldenEye. The trailer for GoldenEye, I found his weakness,
02:16didn't merely persuade audiences that Pierce Brosnan would be a kick-ass James Bond,
02:22but freely spoiled its mid-film plot twist. That the primary antagonist is Bond's old buddy,
02:28Alec Trevelyan, aka 006, played by Sean Bean, who Bond believed died at the start of the movie,
02:36but had, in fact, faked his own demise. The trailer treats this shock reveal like
02:41it's simply a straightforward bad guy introduction, and given that the marketing could have easily
02:47focused its villainous attention on henchwoman Xenia Onatop, played by Famke Jansen, it makes
02:53this spoiler seem even more pointless than it already is. Like, just imagine if audiences watched the
03:00start of GoldenEye genuinely believing that 006 was dead, only to be left agape when he returned,
03:07just as director Martin Campbell surely intended when he made the movie.
03:11And I watched this thing on DVD growing up and that was my exact experience, so sorry if you were
03:18old enough to watch this in the cinemas and got it spoiled, because that's gonna sting.
03:22But what the hey, GoldenEye was a critical and commercial smash regardless, but it's unlikely that
03:29the 006 reveal had much of a hand in that success, so why give it away at all? The kid
03:35is still alive.
03:38Wulffs. The new George Clooney Brad Pitt action comedy Wulffs stars the duo as a pair of fixers
03:44who team up to dispose of the corpse of a young man, played by Austin Abrams, who dies following an
03:50accident in a hotel room. Except the big end of first act twist is that the kid is actually very
03:57much alive, sending Clooney and Pitt's characters on a mad chase to capture him. This is all well and
04:04good, but the movie's trailers freely give this surprise away, despite it not happening until
04:09almost 40 minutes into the 108 minute long film. Given that the kid's sudden burst to life would
04:17have made for a huge, hilarious surprise otherwise, it was criminal to ruin the gag ahead of time.
04:23And yeah, it's tough to imagine that director John Watts was too thrilled by this, given that he
04:29clearly wrote and directed the reveal to be, well, a reveal that audiences only discovered while
04:36watching the movie, rather than being given away early on YouTube.
04:41Apollo Creed's Death. Rocky 4.
04:44Now, generally speaking, sports movies aren't known for their unpredictability,
04:48and that's certainly true of the Rocky franchise. Although the fourth movie had quite the shocking
04:54surprise up its sleeve. The death of Apollo Creed, played by Carl Weathers, at the hands of villain
05:01Ivan Drago, Dolph Lundgren, during a boxing match in the film's opening act. Even accepting that this
05:08happens early-ish in the movie, it's such a jaw-dropping, devastating moment that fans should have been
05:14bamboozled by it in the cinema, not months beforehand. All the trailers really had to focus on was Drago's
05:22ferocity as a seemingly insurmountable opponent for Rocky, but spoiling Apollo's demise was a cheap shot
05:29by the marketing department, pressing fans' emotional buttons in a desperate attempt to get their buds in
05:35seats. And to their begrudging credit, The Gambit evidently worked, as Rocky 4 remains the highest grossing
05:42entry in the entire nine-film franchise almost four decades on from its initial release in theaters.
05:49The Ransom Becomes a Bounty. Ransom. Ron Howard's terrifically entertaining thriller Ransom
05:55boasts one hell of a twist at the end of its second act. Millionaire Tom Mullen's son Sean,
06:02played by Mel Gibson and Brawley Nolt respectively, is kidnapped for a $2 million ransom. But once Tom
06:08realizes that the kidnappers have no intention of returning his son even if the ransom is paid,
06:14he does something just about no one expected. Tom goes on TV and instead offers the ransom as a
06:22bounty on the kidnappers, vowing only to rescind it if Sean is returned to him alive, confirming he has
06:30no intent to pay the ransom. Yeah, it's an incredible table-turning, oh my god this got real moment that
06:37arrives at Tom's lowest point, yet the trailer spoils it like it's the plot of the movie rather
06:43than a twist that's unleashed 70 minutes in. Also, unrelated side note about Ransom, we did get that
06:50great Swede Mason song from it, so that's pretty good too. Rose's villainous turn. Get out.
06:58The trailers for Get Out sold it brilliantly, save for a single shot that told audiences
07:05way too much about where the plot was actually going. After all, audiences are led to believe
07:11the bulk of the runtime that protagonist Chris' girlfriend Rose, played by Alison Williams opposite
07:18Daniel Kaluuya, is an innocent party and totally oblivious to the increasingly unsettling situation
07:25that is unfolding around her. However, the end of the trailer shows a memorable glimpse of Rose with
07:32her hair tied back while shooting a rifle with a stoic expression on her face. This definitely
07:38doesn't look like a heroic character who is taking aim at the bad guys. Everything about her body
07:44language and facial expression makes it clear in this moment that she's actually a secret villain. Given
07:51that Rose's true nature isn't revealed until the final 30 minutes of the movie, it was totally
07:57excessive to spoil it ahead of time. On the upside though, at least it didn't reveal the really creepy
08:03serial scene. George beats his illness.
08:11Funny People Judd Apatow's 2009 dramedy Funny People is about an actor and comedian, George
08:19Simmons, played by Adam Sandler, who is diagnosed with leukemia and must decide what to do with what
08:24remains of his life. The first half of the movie's three and a half minute trailer does a great job
08:31of
08:31selling it as an emotional, comedic drama, but at the midway point, it pointlessly reveals that George's
08:37leukemia eventually goes into remission, in turn prompting him to live each new day to the fullest.
08:45Given that George isn't given a clean bill of health until the end of the second act, it's odd to
08:51give this away in the marketing, almost as though Universal were nervous that selling the film as a
08:56full-on disease movie might hurt its box office prospects. It didn't really matter anyway, as Funny
09:03People was a massive box office bomb regardless, unaided by both its stonking $75 million budget,
09:11and a brutal 146 minute runtime. I dunno, maybe people got cold feet after the whiplash from Click?
09:18Cause that movie is seriously depressing, what the hell. Ant's Tongue was cut out. Speak No Evil 2024.
09:26The trailer for the recent English language remake of cult horror film Speak No Evil just
09:32couldn't help itself, could it? Though the trailer successfully conveys its tripwire tense premise
09:38persuasively, it ends with a final stinger that needlessly spoils that serial killer Paddy's son,
09:45Ant, who is actually a kidnapped victim, has had his tongue cut out with a pair of scissors.
09:50This fact isn't revealed until the end of Act 2 and help set up the brutal finale, and up to
09:57this point,
09:57audiences are led to believe that Ant can't speak due to a congenital birth defect, a small tongue
10:04that leaves him unable to form words. And so giving this twist away in the marketing was howlingly
10:11unnecessary, as left just about anyone who'd seen the original movie absolutely irate for those coming
10:18to the remake totally unaware. Companion
10:21The marketing team behind recent horror hit Companion certainly had a tricky job on their
10:27hands, because while its big surprise is revealed relatively early on, it also would have been
10:32incredible to experience it entirely unspoiled. Though the initial vibes-based teaser trailer was
10:40somewhat vague about its premise, Companion's full-length trailer freely revealed that protagonist
10:46Iris, played by Sophie Thatcher, is secretly a robot owned by her quote unquote boyfriend Josh, played
10:53by Jack Quaid. This is actually revealed 25 minutes into the movie. So it's not quite an Abigail situation
11:01where the marketing spoiled a mid-film twist, but wouldn't it have been so much more fun if the
11:06marketing simply focused on the mystery surrounding Iris, rather than giving it away outright? Sure,
11:12movie studios find vague marketing risky and would rather get butts in seats by focusing on an
11:18attention-grabbing premise. But there's also something to be said for the thrill of Discovery
11:22and a film finding an audience from word of mouth about its exciting surprises. Heck,
11:28just last year Longlegs proved that plot-like marketing can be hugely successful, and it's a shame,
11:35if not remotely surprising, that Companion didn't go this route too.
11:402. Gladiator 2
11:42With Gladiator 2's budget reportedly being as high as $310 million, Paramount obviously had a vested
11:50interest in doing everything within its power to lure audiences to the cinema. And unsurprisingly,
11:57the easiest strategy was spoiling basically the entire movie across its two main trailers,
12:04of course. In any case, these trailers detailed the entire spine of the story as well as the motivations
12:17of basically every single character, showcased every major set piece, and most egregiously confirmed the
12:25off-speculated truth about Lucius' parentage that he is indeed the son of the original Gladiator's
12:31protagonist, Maximus Decimus Meridius. While this was hardly a shocking revelation, it still might
12:37have been worth holding it back for audiences to discover with certainty for themselves. You know,
12:42in the actual cinema. As a result, there was precious little left to be surprised by when folks turned
12:47up and sat down to watch the movie, which turned out to be a disappointingly blatant retread of the
12:53original anyway. Wolfman
12:56Though everyone wanted Lee Whannell's new Wolfman adaptation to be great, the early marketing just
13:02wasn't hitting the right note and failed to suggest it would live up to Whannell's brilliant prior take
13:07on The Invisible Man. With the film's box office tracking poorly in the weeks leading up to its release
13:12this past January, Universal ultimately decided to press the panic button, and a full 10 days before
13:19it hit cinemas, they dropped a clip spoiling the title character's full transformation. Now,
13:25in fairness, this was probably done in part to combat pre-release misinformation over the character's
13:31design, after a hideous Wolfman-branded Universal theme park attraction led many fans to believe that
13:38it would be the creature's final look. On the one hand, it makes sense that Universal
13:42would want to set the record straight, but did they really need to let loose and show the entire
13:47transformation ahead of time? By the way, despite this desperate attempt to change the narrative,
13:53Wolfman was still indifferently received by both critics and general audiences alike.
13:58Ah well, here's hoping that Robert Eggers' own Wolfman movie ends up faring better.
14:03The Last Dance
14:06Sony evidently didn't give a single damn about holding any surprises back ahead of the third,
14:11and apparently final Venom film hitting cinemas. Nor did they seemingly give a single damn about the
14:17party of this entire Spider-Man spin-off affair, but I digress. The marketing gave away basically
14:24every interesting thing in the movie, from the presence of iconic supervillain Null, even if he
14:30was ultimately a majorly missed opportunity, to the funniest gag involving Mrs. Chen and the coolest
14:37action beat where Venom commandeers a horse. Hell, the trailers even showed extensive clips from the
14:43threequel's climax, explicitly implying that Venom perishes in a sacrificial act to save his host Eddie
14:50Brock, as does indeed happen at the film's end. This gung-ho approach certainly suggested that Sony
14:57was nervous about the film's box office performance leading up to its release, and yet the spoilerific
15:03marketing didn't stop it becoming the lowest grossing entry in the trilogy, so what was the point?
15:08Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
15:11It's well into Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes's second act before human protagonist May,
15:16played by Freya Allen, is properly introduced, and the final trailer casually revealed that
15:22she has the ability to speak, almost as though it isn't meant to be a big surprise. And yet,
15:28there's a clear discrepancy between the marketing and the movie itself, which absolutely treats this
15:34as a revelation when May finally stands up and shouts Noah while being pursued. This happens over
15:41an hour into the film, almost halfway through the runtime by the way, and is mounted as a big grandstanding
15:48reveal that's clearly meant to be a shock to both the apes and the audience. But given that we all
15:54knew
15:54about this a few weeks before release, it rather had the wind taken out of its sails. Perhaps 20th
16:00Century Studios felt that the marketing wasn't emphasizing the human element enough, even though
16:05the recent apes films have performed well commercially with a focus on the apes, so… yeah, this made no
16:13sense. Alien Romulus
16:1620th Century Studios were hell-bent on assuring fans that Alien Romulus was something of a quote-unquote
16:23course correction for the franchise following the polarizing response to both Prometheus and Alien
16:29Covenant, to the extent that they gave huge swaths of the movie away for free. While any Alien fan
16:35knows that the majority of the series' characters are doomed to die, it's the how that is fun, and
16:42yeah, Romulus' trailers held little back in spoiling the fates of crew members Bjorn and Navarro. In the
16:48latter's case, the trailers increasingly showed more and more footage from Navarro being impregnated
16:54with a chestburster before finally giving up entirely and showing her death itself. Sure,
17:00they had some restraint in not revealing CGI Ian Holm or the human-xenomorph hybrid, but as these
17:09elements were ultimately among the movie's most divisive, it was surely a calculation to keep them
17:15under wraps until release. Compare Romulus' marketing to the more ambiguous and iconic
17:21trailer for Ridley Scott's original Alien, and it's a stark indication of just how much movie
17:28marketing has changed for the worse over the decades. A Quiet Place Day One
17:34One suspects that Paramount was a teensy bit anxious about releasing their first A Quiet Place movie
17:41without Emily Blunt, considering that the two main trailers for A Quiet Place Day One revealed almost
17:47every single facet of the main plot. And this got even worse on release week, when the studio
17:53released a spoiler-packed final trailer making it abundantly clear how things would turn out.
17:59Most notably, this trailer included a lingering glimpse of male lead Eric, played by Joseph Quinn,
18:05fleeing one of the alien monsters and leaping into a body of water while carrying Sam's pet cat Frodo,
18:12Sam of course being played by Lupita Nyong'o. As the marketing clearly established Sam's unbreakable
18:18bond with Frodo, to the extent of even releasing a featurette about it, this shot made it easy to
18:24figure out that Sam was basically donezo at this point in the story. And yeah, even though it's revealed
18:31at the start of the movie that Sam is terminally ill, this clip makes it clear that they end up
18:36giving Frodo to Eric before they go their separate ways in the climax.
18:40Captain America Brave New World
18:43Given that the fourth Captain America film arrived amid a tidal wave of negativity, from reports about
18:50poor test screenings to extensive reshoots and concerns over its box office potential, it's hardly a
18:57surprise that Marvel Studios decided to just give away its big secret ahead of time.
19:02The first teaser trailer briefly revealed the presence of Red Hulk, which was bad enough,
19:08but subsequent trailers flat out confirmed him to be the superpowered alter ego of one Thaddeus
19:13Ross, here played by Harrison Ford, a fact non-comic book fans probably weren't aware of.
19:19Yet, despite the marketing playing up Red Hulk as the film's feature villainous attraction,
19:24while largely downplaying the real main villain, the leader, played by Tim Blake Nelson, he doesn't
19:30show up until the final 20 minutes and is on screen for just a single action sequence.
19:37Surprising audiences with Red Hulk would have likely resulted in a more positive reception
19:41from critics and fans alike, rather than revealing it seven months before release,
19:46and then leaving viewers to weigh 80% of the movie for the big marketing hook to finally show itself.
19:52SMILE 2
19:54SMILE 2 was an impressively sturdy follow-up to its surprisingly solid predecessor, and yet,
20:00despite the original's mighty performance at the box office, Paramount went pretty hard with the
20:05spoilers while marketing the sequel. One of the big mysteries surrounding SMILE 2's release was the
20:11status of the previous film's surviving character, Joel, played by Kyle Galner, who was left cursed in
20:18its bleak final scene. But the fan speculation ultimately didn't last long, as the first teaser
20:25trailer very clearly showed Joel running into the street as a car careens into him before cutting to
20:31the gory remnants a few moments later, leaving little to the imagination. Beyond that, and showing almost
20:38every substantial set piece in the film, the trailers also placed a high emphasis on pop star protagonist
20:45Sky, played by Naomi Scott, performing in front of live audiences, leading many to correctly predict
20:51SMILE 2's wild climax, where Sky is killed in front of a crowd of concertgoers, seemingly cursing them
20:58all in the process. Yeah, given that SMILE 2 was a highly entertaining sequel to a well-received horror
21:05film, the marketing really could have been a little shyer.
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